US launches bid to save Syria truce

GENEVA:US Secretary of State John Kerry launched a desperate push Monday to salvage a ceasefire in Syria, as the country’s second city of Aleppo reeled from a week of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians.

With the two-month old truce brokered by the United States and Russia under severe threat, Kerry said Washington and Moscow had made progress in trying to contain the bloodshed, but warned it was premature to promise success.

The top US diplomat gave some of his most downbeat comments yet after meeting the United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura in Geneva, saying the conflict was “in many ways out of control and deeply disturbing to everybody in the world, I hope.”

The US and Russia have agreed to bolster the number of Geneva-based ceasefire monitors, Kerry told reporters, pledging to work “in the next hours” to rein in violence on the ground.

In and around Aleppo, a week of fighting has killed more than 250 people.

Kerry accused President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of deliberately targeting three clinics and a major hospital last week.

“The attack on this hospital is unconscionable,” he said. “And it has to stop.”

There was a relative lull in the unrest later Monday, allowing some residents to venture out into the streets, AFP’s correspondents in Aleppo said, with some even opening up shops.

Greengrocer Abu Nazem said he had not worked all of last week out of fear of air raids.

“I decided to come back to work today but despite the calm I am still afraid. Sometimes I hear motorbikes going past and I dive for cover because I think it’s a military plane,” he told Agence France-Presse.

Kerry said a bolstered group of ceasefire monitors will track violations “24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

A senior US diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the US, Russia and the UN have moved forward on a new ceasefire mechanism for Aleppo, but a deal was not complete.

Kerry stressed that the goal was to reinforce a broad truce capable of withstanding further tests.

“We’re trying to press this as fast as possible but I don’t want to make any promises that can’t be kept,” he told reporters after meeting de Mistura and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir — whose government has influence with key rebel groups.